FRIEND2FARMER

DIRECT TRADE: RELATIONSHIP COFFEE.

Creating Sustainable Relationships through Responsible Sourcing.
From the grower to the roaster to your favorite cafe, It takes a lot of hands to create a great cup of coffee. Our Friend2Farmer® coffees are harvested thousands of miles away by small-plot coffee farmers. Carefully selected for exceptional quality, the coffee is then roasted in small batches in Columbus, Ohio to preserve the integrity of the bean’s flavor and the farmer’s hard work.

To bring you this awesome coffee, Crimson Cup travels to meet the farmers and select the coffees we feel represent their farm the best. With a handshake, we purchase their crop for more than they could get on the open market.

Now, we’re working hand-in-hand to develop better coffee and a better quality of life for the farmers, their families and their community. We take several trips a year to make friends and strengthen relationships and help fund local schools and other life-enriching projects.

We developed our Friend2Farmer® program because we wanted to go beyond existing Fair Trade and other third party programs to become directly involved in coffee-growing communities. Each Friend2Farmer® coffee is purchased directly from small-plot coffee farmers and then imported, hand-roasted and packaged by Crimson Cup.

In the end, we believe that nothing’s better than waking up and knowing the delicious coffee you’re drinking is helping to brew better lives, better coffee and better communities.

FEATURED F2F Coffee: Olopa, GuatemalaWith its chocolate fragrance, silky body and pleasing acidity, this shade-grown coffee yields a remarkably clean cup. Grown at 4,600 feet, the fully-washed and patio-dried beans are the pride of 20 small farmers near the town of Olopa in the Chiquimula department of eastern Guatemala.

These small farmers draw on a rich history of coffee cultivation, which has been the area’s main source of livelihood for more than 80 years. They recently banded together to market their coffee through the Association of Producers of Olopa Coffee (Apolo) co-op and have begun to win local and regional awards.

When Crimson Cup became the first American roaster to visit and establish direct trade, the farmers were as excited to meet our buyers as we were to experience their coffee and hospitality. Impressed by their coffee, growing methods and community, we committed to buying two full containers at a price that gives the farmers additional funds to invest in improving their farms and community.

Your purchase helps to improve the lives of these local farmers as they work to establish a sustainable future in the world’s poorest country.

At Crimson Cup, we’ve been fortunate to build a relationship with the village of El Socorro and David Lopez, who is one of the driving forces behind the transformation underway in the remote Honduran village of El Socorro de la Penita.

Working with David and other local farmers since 2011, we’re seeing significant impact in the community school and improvement in the quality of coffee.

Growing up in the village, David attended its one-room Jose Cecilio del Valle elementary school through sixth grade. Formal education ends there for 95 percent of the community’s children. David, however, was determined to keep learning. He left to attend junior high and then high school in larger communities.

A deep commitment to his heritage drew David home in 1999. Upon his return, his father gave him 18 acres of land that were being used for cattle pasture. He began the process of creating a coffee farm, planting shade trees and high-quality coffee trees.

As in many small communities, the 21 coffee farmers in El Socorro had been at the mercy of coffee coyotes when selling their crop. They earned barely enough to cover the costs of cultivation. David decided to change that. He helped organize his neighbors into Coop Cultivadores del Reino, allowing them to negotiate higher prices by selling as a group. He also built a wet mill to process their coffee locally, improving its quality and consistency.

David’s hard work came to our attention in 2011. Since then, we’ve developed a direct trade relationship with David and other coop members designed around four pillars of impact – price, quality, production and education.

Help David, and the village of El Socorro offer a better education to their children. To empower the community to feel good about providing more for the next generation to come!